There has been some discussion lately among some of my youth ministry friends about the future of our profession. There seems to be another round of shots fired across the bow at youth ministry and the professionals that lead these ministries. Sticky Faith, Family Based Ministries, and people with axes to grind continue to lay the decaying faith of adolescents and young adults squarely at the feet of us professionals and the failed models we are propping up.
Fellow professional youth workers have no fear, our jobs are here to stay!! We have an amazing calling and part of an amazing legacy, and I am convinced that for the foreseeable future, churches will continue to do everything in their power to make sure their staffs include a paid youth worker. Here’s why:
1) If a church is going to attract young families, they need to prove that they will care for the entire spiritual development of their kids.
For better or worse, a church that has a paid youth worker, signifies to the entire church family that they care about families. While children’s ministry is incredibly important, many parents will tolerate poor children’s ministry if they know that as their children grow into teens, there will be a place for them to continue to work it out at the church. Think of all the families that restart the church hopping process when their kids reach 4th and 5th grade. All of the sudden, that great church plant, or dynamic young preacher doesn’t seem to cut it when their own kids’ faith is on the line. A paid youth worker communicates care for this significant felt need.
2) It is a model that has positively impacted those who are now at the age to make decisions regarding staffing and budgets in churches.
It is an unavoidable truth that people invest and do the things that are meaningful to them. Think of how you choose what to do for your youth ministry program. Chances are most of what you do is based on the things that God used in significant ways in your own life when you were in student ministry. Youth ministry has now been around long enough that the power players at most churches remember the Hay Day of youth ministry and the significant role that ministry played in their faith development. They want their church to provide solid ministry for their own kids and their view of a thriving church includes a thriving student ministry. Most thriving student ministries are headed up by a paid point person.
3) Students continue to need a place for fellowship and learning that is separate from their parents and makes space for their unique developmental needs.
For all the talk about family ministry and integration, the fundamental task of adolescence is still individuation and separation from their family’s faith. Students need a place separate from their parents where they can ask the hard questions, push back, run away, and still be seen and loved by the church at large. Student ministry provides a unique haven in this adolescent development where students can work out their faith separate from their mom while still being connected to the church. It is really brilliant if you think about it.
4) The traditional model of youth ministr, run by a professional, continues to be the most effective model at helping students develop personal faith and providing significant water marks in their lives.
I know it is so cool to be pissed at the church and youth ministry for all the kids who walk away from faith. But stop and think about all the kids who have ever come through your ministry and reflect on the ways that God has grabbed ahold of. We need to actually stop and celebrate the great things that God is doing in them and through them now. This isn’t something to gloss over. A vast majority of those in leadership now in the Church with a capital C are people who were leaders in their student ministries. Praise God for the gutter to glory stories of those people who find Jesus all by themselves later in life. But when you start to ask around, those people are the exception. Youth ministry is the tool that God has and is continuing to use to clarify people’s call into His family, and into ministry.
5) Name one church who has all the resources they need who would intentionally staff their church without a professional to run the student ministry.
For reals, name one. I know finances are hectic and churches have to be creative. But not hiring because of financial hard times is not the same as not doing youth ministry because of conviction. And the churches who are relying on faithful volunteers, whom I am honored to count as my colleagues, would pay those volunteers or someone else if they happened to win the Mega Millions Jackpot this last week.
A caveat:
While I do firmly believe that churches will continue to pay for people to work with students, they will no longer pay people who do shoddy work. Financial hardship is a reality in many of our contexts and every dollar matters. If our church leaders are going to be good stewards of their resources then they will only be paying people who will work hard and do a good job.
Gone are the days where youth workers are simply paid to goof off with students, play video games, eat pizza, and have a few informal bible studies at their house. If someone is being paid to run a youth ministry, then they will be expected to run a youth ministry. This includes program, administration, duties assigned by pastor, and then video game extravaganzas, all within a tight budget.
The good news is that our profession is here to stay! The bad news is that we will continue to be expected to work harder and be more effective than our predecessors. Friends, it is gut check time!
Are you still called to do ministry in this environment and with these expectations? Do you still love students, but may be losing steam on the professional aspect of it? Is it time to maybe need to call it quits? Or do you simply think I am full of crap and protecting my own paycheck? 
If there were no professional youth workers, who would read Mark-O extremist comments?
This is so well written. I love it. But from where I am sitting, it FEELS like we are already seeing the opposite happening. Granted, I have some quantitative evidence, but mostly qualitative. And I know my experiences can’t be taken as representative. But, we are in a unique spot. We talk to youth workers from all over the country on a regular basis. Here is what we are seeing just as of late:
–Met with two individuals from the Southern Baptist Convention of Georgia. They have 3600 churches in GA. They polled them to see how many were paid, full time youth pastors. Results? 12% (!!!!) 88% of SBC churches in GA, a denomination that carries the flag for youth ministry, are volunteers.
–Heard another Baptist stat the other day: of the 40,000+ SBC churches in the country, less than 2,000 have 1,000 or more in worship on Sundays. This tells me what we already know about most churches in the country. They are getting smaller. Anecdotal? yes. But smaller churches seem to mean smalller budgets. And in many parts of the country, full time youth and children’s pastors are the first to go.
–We polled thousands of youth workers recently who have interacted with ym360 this year. A little more than half were un-paid or part-time volunteers.
–This is not representative, but the overwhelming number of calls we get are from volunteers or bi-vocational youth pastors.
–We attended 6 major youth ministry conferences in October 2011 to March 2012. It FELT like we spoke with more bi-vocational youth pastors that full timers.
–In one of my workshops at Simply Youth Ministry Conference this year, I had around 100 attendees. I asked them to raise their hands if they were full-time youth pastors. less than 10 did.
Take this for what it’s worth. It’s not all hard statistics. But, we are hearing similar things from other large ministries we partner with. I’m still trying to piece it all together. But I’ll tell you this, it is a MAJOR conversation. I ate breakfast this morning with an executive at one of the larger Christian publishers. We talked about this very thing.
Curious as to what you think, friend.
I agree that fewer churches are hiring youth workers. But I am convinced that this is a financial choice not one of conviction. We are in crazy financial times, which does mean that some models will be tweaked, but it does’t change that paid youth ministers is still the best option. (in my opinion)
It will be interesting to note how financial realities end up shaping convictions. It is an interesting conversation. I sure hope I don’t get fired
I think losing steam is definitely a reality for a lot of us, me in particular. I hecka miss being a youth group volunteer who was just committed to running around crazily with kids!
But I can imagine feeling the same kind of reward and benefit if I were to go back to just running around with kids and working some security job somewhere. May God bless and develop full-time paid youth ministry opportunities everywhere!
I still am going to have pizza and play video games with kids though. That’s just a given.
Great post. I agree that professional youth ministry isn’t going anywhere. I do think that churches who struggle financially will use part time staff and will continue to do so. I would love to see more partnerships between churches to resource share for youth ministries.
I think if I can ever be as cool looking as the bro in the picture at the top of this page, I will always find a career in youth ministry.